Which school fundraisers do you support?

[Mono~rail]

I didn't want to highjack the book fair thread, so I started a new one.

I do not like the corporate fundraisers. The corporation keeps far more of the profits than the school. Also, I don't like the tactics used to get the kids all hyped up and competitive for some cheesy and dinky prize. I won't go into details because anyone with school age children knows what I mean. (I'm not a scrooge. Instead of purchasing from these I make a donation to the school.)

Fundraisers I do like and support are the ones that enable the school to keep ALL the profits.

1) Garage sales - my absolute favorite!

2) School carnivals - Fall Festival, Spring Festival, etc.

3) Bake Sales - parents and other family donate baked goods

 

[disneysnowflake]

I like the fundraisers where the kids sell gift cards to restaurants.

I've purchased $1 McDonalds gift certificates from my niece's preschool. The preschool gets to keep 50 cents for each $1 certificate they sell. You give $1, you get $1 in food. That was so popular they quickly ran out of gift certificates.

I also liked similar fund raisers for Subway, Pizza Hut, etc. You give X amount of dollars for a gift card of that amount. The school makes X amount for each dollar sold.

My older niece's band had pizza night at Pizza Hut. One weeknight if you give the Pizza Hut your coupon from the band the band will make 20% of your total order price before tax. They earned quite a bit with those.

I'd much rather buy something that is really usable like gift certificates and such.

I just received my cheesy Mickey countdown to Christmas thing. It was $8. A stupid small fiberboard picture with a tiny chalkboard surface in the center with a piece of chalk. It looks like something I'd buy at the flea market for 25 cents.
I guess that's better than what my neighbor ordered. She spent $8 on a recipe book. It turned out to be a 4x6 spiral bound 18 page cookbook (including the front and back cover in the page count) with recipes for sprucing up rice-a-roni and such. She got a whopping 12 receipes in her $8 cookbook. It reminds me of the booklets those gals in the supermarket hand out with free samples except it was spiral bound.

ETA: Our local public school doesn't do carnivals, bake sales, etc. The staff and PTA don't want to use their personal time to do carnivals, etc.
It's much easier for them to do the catalog type sales.
If you donate money, like my kids did, the ones who donate aren't permitted to do the pizza party, movie, etc. like the kids who sell the crap.

 

[java]

That picture cracks me up everytime!

Now I am a sucker for the sales and do support the magazine sale and the easter candy sale- but I don't do the wrapping paper anymore and I don't do Market day. I would prefer a flat out donation! Our school doesn't do anything like a bake sale or garage sale- maybe they should.

 

[I'mNoPrince]

As DD attends a private school we try to attend all of them I know we are still paying in the end but this way at least we get some enjoyment out of it.

Family Bingo and Fairs are the biggest ones.

 

[Hedy]

Senior year of HS we did Yankee Candle, which I thought was a pretty good one (prices were fairly reasonably, and it was stuff people would actually use).
I'm not a huge fan of bakesales, but I think that's because my town requires you to put ingredients on anything you bring, so it sort of became an unwrap grocery store cookies fundraiser.

 

[mrsbornkuntry]

Our school PTA sells popcorn every Friday for .25 a bag, I really like that. It's like a treat for the kids, but not candy and it's affordable, even with 4 kids in school I can swing a dollar a week, lol.

 

[Plantlady]

We do the book fairs, and the carnival.

My kids don't sell anything.

One school we went to, there was a fund raiser for a family that lost their house to a fire. The local pizza hut let the teachers be the waitresses and waiters and all of the tip money and all of the profits that night went to that family. We did do that. The kids had a blast with their teachers waiting on them.

 

[EthansMom]

I don't care for the wrapping paper so we didn't buy/sell any this year.

Our school does Box Tops for Education, which I don't mind at all. I clip around $10 a year in Box Tops and was able to easily earn $5 from just one recent purchase from Lands End through the Box Tops Marketplace.

I don't mind the book fair, but did limit DS to one book for himself and one book out of his teacher's "wish basket" (to send in for the class). Add in a book for DD2.5 and that was three books. Our PTO has a lot of funds this year, so instead of getting the cash back from Scholastic, we voted to get Scholastic vouchers for the teachers, which will be worth double the money the PTO would have gotten. Oh, and I also donated a $1 for the the open fund (more money for the teachers to buy books) for the book fair.

The kids also collect for UNICEF at Halloween and I keep quarters on hand for those kids who have their boxes with them.

By far, our biggest fundraiser is a dinner-dance auction held every summer. They auction off donated items (like a week at someone's timeshare, etc.) and also items made by the kids. Parents purchase tickets to the dinner-dance, which pretty much cover the cost of the event. The auction makes pretty good money and gives everyone a night out.

One thing that's nice about joining the PTO is that they mention how much that is made (or expected to be made) from each of the fundraisers. It's nice to know that $X is made from the wrapping paper so that I can figure out the average and contribute accordingly to some other fundraiser.

I try to contribute to the fundraising efforts, but I'm not too concerned about what other people think about my contributions. Another mom (who is a PTO office member) mentioned to my SIL that SIL and I hadn't purchased any wrapping paper and my SIL told her, "No, we didn't see anything we wanted, but we're both making lots of Christmas purchases through the Box Tops Marketplace." Likewise, if I don't donate to an elaborate gift basket for DS's teacher, it's because I've chosen to give her some home-baked goodies and a gift certificate that could be used to purchase supplies for the classroom.

 

[allison443]

Our school sells scrip-gift cards for grocery stores, gas stations, home depot, lowes, barnes and noble, etc. They buy them at a discount and sell them for face value. Example, the school buys a $100 home depot gift card for $90 and sells it to me for $100. School makes $10 profit. The percentages vary by store. They also have restaurants like burger king, applebees, TGIFridays. Also movie theaters, department stores, bath and body works, etc...

We have to buy a minimum of $2000 every year. (this is a catholic school) It requires a little planning but they keep many of the cards "in stock" at the school so you can get them immediately. They implemented this about 3 or 4 years ago and have done quite well with it.

 

[DVCLiz]

All of them. If I felt strongly about my child's school participating in a fundraiser I didn't approve of, I'd get involved at the planning level and suggest/implement changes for the future, but once the school has decided on the event/project/sale, I'm a full supporter.

Having said that, my daughter's (private) school, which is K-8, doesn't have any "sale" fundraisers. Until high school, both girls sold only Girl Scout cookies (something else I fully support.) I have friends, though, who have children in another school, and they have sold oranges, flowers, cookie dough, wrapping paper, etc through the years. They also sell Scout popcorn, which I buy. Once my daughter entered high shool (changing to a new school), she also sold oranges, which I bought.

Both schools have parent functions as major fundraisers, similar to the dinner/dance auction someone mentioned above. I attend those events and buy if I see something I want. Once I bought a beautiful antique Chinese basket, another time I "bought" my daughter a day with her teacher to go roller-skating and out to lunch.

I may not like all the choices, but once the event is in the hands of the children, I will support them to the best of my ability.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

Ahck! This is my hot-button issue of the day.

Two weeks ago my son's preschool put up a sign "Remember to pick up your raffle tickets!" So I went to the front desk and was given $100 of raffle tickets to sell. I wasn't happy, but lumped it as just one of those things I'd have to deal with. I don't have anyone to sell them to. It's inappropriate to sell them where I work, and all of the extended family are too far away to hit up. Fine. Wish they would've just added $8 a month to the exorbitant tuition, but fine.

Yesterday, DH picks up DS and finds another note (with DS's name misspelled ). "Stop by and pick up the rest of your tickets." Huh?!?! Apparently, we need to sell $400 worth of raffle tickets

I hate being nickled and dimed. My son has to raise $400 in preschool. That's as much as I had to raise to fund my own trip with the HS band to the Gator Bowl!!! WHAT THE HECK!!!

 

[ilovejack02]

I support them all, some i may spend more money with than others but I have always purchased items supporting my children's school.

 

[ilovejack02]

Ahck! This is my hot-button issue of the day.

Two weeks ago my son's preschool put up a sign "Remember to pick up your raffle tickets!" So I went to the front desk and was given $100 of raffle tickets to sell. I wasn't happy, but lumped it as just one of those things I'd have to deal with. I don't have anyone to sell them to. It's inappropriate to sell them where I work, and all of the extended family are too far away to hit up. Fine. Wish they would've just added $8 a month to the exorbitant tuition, but fine.

Yesterday, DH picks up DS and finds another note (with DS's name misspelled ). "Stop by and pick up the rest of your tickets." Huh?!?! Apparently, we need to sell $400 worth of raffle tickets

I hate being nickled and dimed. My son has to raise $400 in preschool. That's as much as I had to raise to fund my own trip with the HS band to the Gator Bowl!!! WHAT THE HECK!!!

Now i have to say that I woulnt be happy about that at all. I would buy a few and IF i could sell a few that would be great, but no way in hell id try to sell that much. Is it a mandatory participation? This may be how the school has always worked, but if not i would def. see about getting on what ever commitee that is running that next year.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

No committee, and it's mandatory. We're being billed for it.

 

[ilovejack02]

No committee, and it's mandatory. We're being billed for it.

OH MY! I know that several of my friends HAVE to help work school fair or pay a 500.00 fine. They of course know it up front when they sign their kiddies up for school and sign a contract about it.
What is being given away?

 

[LetsgoDisney!]

All of them- but I only sell to outside the family the thingss that are useful- We actually have had our neighbors ask that my DS bring the flier over to them. At work, I put up a sign that says School fundraiser- I don't ask but it's there if people want to buy- and I always encourage them not to buy if I think they are doing it for me.
Our fundraisers this year include (but are not limited to): wrapping paper, cookie dough, wreaths, flowers, a walk-a-thon, a dance/casino type weekend, a haunted trail, bingo, candy bars- and I don't know what else. In addition, gifts cards to grocery stores, box tops etc. We also have to put in service hours or pay 500 more tuition.....

 

[Stein]

I usually support everything. If a kid has the drive to walk around door to door, I will buy whatever they are selling. I enjoy supporting kids who are not afraid of a little work. If they have a stand at the grocery store, I will buy one from there as well. We are anxiously awaiting delivery of some sort of cookie dough I bought a couple of weeks ago.

The funny thing is that after I bought it, the neighbor kids' mother offered to give us a bunch of outgrown summer clothes for our dd3, which we were looking at buying for our January DCL/WDW vacation. Sometimes things come full circle.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

OH MY! I know that several of my friends HAVE to help work school fair or pay a 500.00 fine. They of course know it up front when they sign their kiddies up for school and sign a contract about it.
What is being given away?

Sorry I've hijacked this thread. Ooops. To answer this question, though, it's a cash raffle with 3 possible prizes: $1000, $250, and $100.

 

[canwegosoon]

I will X the ones I supported last year

Gift wrap X
Magazines X
Entertainment BookX
Reverse raffle($100pt)
Worked Election Night(for call into TV)X
Bake SalesX
Race for EducationX
Fall Book Sale X
Religious Book sale
Spring Book Sale
Winters Night Out X
Pizzaria Uno Fund RaiserX
Teacher GiftsX
Yankee Candle
---Another Dining Fundraiser
Craft Fair X

Other Service projects
10,000 cans or boxes for food pantry X
Box Tops X
Coats for Kids
Christmas Gifts for Needy X
CP Angels
CP Hop-a-thon X

Note this list does not include Scouts. And this was all I could think of right off the top of my head.
BTW our school raises over $150,000. On top of tuition which is $400 person per month. We used to do script...but they stopped doing that.

 

[stinkerbell_&_Co]

I will always support a book fair, although I never let them buy any of the "junk" (posters, pens, erasers..etc).

My daughter has fall festival tonight, and that's always fun. It's a good way to have family time, and an easy money maker for the school.